Hypothetically (Country)

[Casey H]

the very reason why some think this isn't typically country lyrics may be the very reason you should keep it this way. sometimes pushing it a bit is what you need, but it can work both ways of course, especially if you're going for more traditional country.

What 18-24 year old female driving to work at 7:30 AM wants to hear should be the least of your worries, i think old mr. murphy is missing the mark here, like when he talks about "the human animal" and songwriters being "monumentally disfunctional" all the time

There's never any absolute wrong or right answer. All I can say is what I think (MHO!) matters in terms of overall probability of success for a given song in a given type of pitch. Remember if you pitch this song for a country artist, you've got to get it through a lot of heavy duty gatekeepers, most of whom will look it at the same way as I did here (Again MHO)... Screeners, publishers, managers, etc, etc are all gatekeepers. New songwriters are held to extremely high standards, WAY higher than anyone already established. Country artist pitches are the most competitive in the universe. You have to use every advantage you can and any little blemish can get your song tossed. So at least get rid of the warts you can.

Best,
Casey

[mikemichnya]

I"m with Casey on this. Your probability of success goes up if you deliver what people expect. The caveat is that the brain likes both novel AND familiar things. So if you create something that adds just the right amount of novelty (like hip-hop beats) to the familiar (country music) in just the right way, you've got a hit, and maybe a new genre to boot (hick-hop, anyone?)

The main reason that it helps to "show" and not "tell" in song lyrics is that because we have two big eyes right in the middle of our face (the better to see you with...) most people are very visual. When you write abstract lyrics, a huge chunk of your potential listening audience won't 'see' enough in the song and they'll switch to something else.

Of course, if you can hook them with the beat or the melody, they might not care what the lyric says or means... (Nah, nah, nah, goodbye...) so your song might still work as is if it's infectious enough in one of those areas.

Looking forward to hearing it. Good luck whatever you decide.